When Eoin Morgan was dropped for England’s winter tour to Sri Lanka he had the
choice of returning to the Indian Premier League or working his way back to
form in county cricket.

But after spending two months with the Kolkata Knight Riders and not being given a minute of competitive action, Morgan insists he has no regrets about his decision.

Morgan’s £220,000 IPL fee may have something to do with it, although the batsman who endured a miserable winter with England’s Test team claims his trips to the subcontinent have always improved him as a player.

“I made the decision to go to the IPL after the Dubai tour,” he said. “I wasn’t part of the squad going to Sri Lanka. If I had been part of the squad I would have reconsidered my position and come here to Middlesex.

“But because I was maybe two or three places off playing a Test, which was a bit of surprise to me, I decided to go to the IPL, and spend some time working on my game.

“From my experience there over the last three years, I have always come back a better player.”

Morgan has not played Test cricket since the series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in February, when he scraped just 82 runs in six innings, and his side lost 3-0.

He was not the only England batsman to struggle against spin in the three matches, with Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell also having a hard time against Saeed Ajmal, in particular, but Samit Patel took his place at No 6 when he was dropped for the tour of Sri Lanka that followed.

Morgan’s decision to go to the IPL meant that he was still in India when England gave Yorkshire’s Jonathan Bairstow his Test debut in the place he had vacated.

“I had four months off with a shoulder injury and was quite fresh but I didn’t perform against Pakistan,” Morgan said. “I was last one in and first out. But I still think I have a hell of a lot to offer. I just need to reproduce what I have done in the past and prove to everybody what I can offer to the team.”

Morgan believes he can do that in England’s forthcoming one-day and Twenty20 international series against West Indies and Australia.

He said: “Me and Ravi Bopara have duelled for a place for the last two years now. I had it in my hands and didn’t do well in Dubai and I thought Ravi would be the next person in. Obviously, he wasn’t.

“It was strange to see Samit play in front of him. Looking towards the future Bairstow has it in his hands and we go from there. It could be anybody’s after that.

“To get back in the Test side the selectors have said I need runs, whether they come in championship cricket, one-day internationals or Twenty20s.”

Going to the IPL and fulfilling the role of travelling reserve has meant Morgan starting the domestic season late.

He played his first competitive innings in almost three months in Middlesex’s CB40 win at Leicester on Sunday and will make his first County Championship appearance since July 2010 against Lancashire at Liverpool today. “The development of my cricket has always been through one-day cricket and partially four-day cricket. But I have learnt on the international stage quite well and done quite well. That’s where my opportunity first came in Test match cricket.

“One massive positive from the IPL is it gave me two months of hard work, unlimited facilities and unlimited bowlers. Spin-bowling specific is what I’ve worked on and it gave me volume, which is what I needed.

“I feel fresh and keen to play. The nature of the IPL is if you are in a team that does well it rarely changes. We had a team that had four unbelievably world-class international players – Jacques Kallis, Brendon McCullum, Sunil Narine and either Brett Lee or Marchant de Lange – who did really well.

“So trying to get in and mix things up was difficult while we were winning. But to be part of a winning side makes you hungrier and greedier to want to be part of it.

“You are involved and are appreciated a bit more when you are not playing. But it was still nice to be involved and a great learning experience.”